Tuesday, August 31, 2010

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Phew! Now that we're beginning to recover from Jeanne's awesome launch party ... Zach and the hockey hunks are offering restoratifs and massages ... well, Zach is busy with me, but you can help yourself to one of the others ... it's time to celebrate a new month in the Lair.

A great way to kick off that celebration will be to rush out and buy Jeanne Adam's Deadly Little Secrets - available from September 7th - and Tawny Weber's Riding the Waves - available now!

Or you can click on the cover links here, which will take you straight to Amazon!

And, if that's not enough, here's a tempting taster of the fabulous guests who will be dropping by the Lair this month.

We kick off the month on September 2 with RITA winner Molly O'Keefe (www.molly-okeefe.com), who will be talking about her favorite musician and giving us the scoop on her Superromance trilogy, The Notorious O'Neills, starting with The Temptation of Savannah O'Neill!

On September 3rd, Aunty Cindy hosts paranormal romance author Kendra Leigh Castle,(www.kendraleighcastle.com) who will talk about her new release from Harlequin Nocturne, Renegade Angel. She'll also be happy to answer questions about her other shape-shifter books, and about the new furry beastie in her life.

A Lair favourite returns on the 6th when Jo Davis (www.jodavis.net)talks with Suz about her newest erotic spy romance, I Spy A Naughty Game, the second in Jo's seriously sexy SHADO Agency series. And the pair will have a hint or two about the next firefighter book and something new coming from our friend Jo.

On 7th September, Foanna hosts debut Australian author Christina Phillips (www.christinaphillips.com) who will talk about Forbidden, a smoking hot romance between a Roman aristocrat and a Druid priestess!

Another Lair favourite Nicola Cornick www.nicolacornick.co.uk) joins us on the 16th September, to talk about Whisper of Scandal, the first book in her new series.

MJ Fredrick, yet another Lair favourite, returns to the Lair on 19th September to celebrate the September 6 launch of her latest book, Sunrise Over Texas, from Carina Press, the story of a woman struggling to hold her family together, a man who lost everything and the struggles the two of them endure in the new land...and with a new love.

Addison Fox (www.addisonfox.com)is back to bring us another of her sexy Zodiac Warriors in Warrior Avenged. This exciting new series is only book two of her Warriors of the Zodiac series with plenty more paranormal Zodiac Warriors to come. Check out what has Suz so hot....really....about this new book.

Popular thriller writer Shane Gericke (www.shanegericke.com)joins us on September 24th. Keep an eye out for his new book, Torn Apart!

Rounding off the month on 27th September with another Lair favourite, Miranda Neville (www.mirandneville.com) who will pop by to tell us about the second book in her Burgundy Club series, The Dangerous Viscount.

And, don't forget Anna Campbell is running a fantabulous contest - she is giving away TWO Change of Season Reading Packs in her latest website contest. Each AWESOME pack will include signed copies of My Reckless Surrender by Anna Campbell, Sweetest Little Sin by Christine Wells, His Mistress for a Million by Trish Morey, The Greek's Convenient Mistress by Annie West, Dark Deceiver by Pamela Palmer, and either Does She Dare? or Risque Business by Tawny Weber. Just email Anna on anna@annacampbell.info and tell her one other book by each of these authors (the website links are on her contest page to make it easy) to go into the draw. For more information, please visit Anna's contest page. http://www.annacampbell.info/contest.html

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This weekend, Alex, Toby and I took the ferry over to the Jazz Age Lawn Party on Governor's Island.A jazz band played old-timey tunes, and there was a tug-of-war, pie contest and Charleston lessons.People dressed up in fabulous 1920's ensembles--lots of pearls, suspenders and straw hats. (I, of course, wore a nursing shirt:)Toby mingled with the dapper crowd.And this girl wore the most fabulous swimsuit (which she had made herself). Yowza!

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**Attention Minnesota Twins fans!!** If you haven't been to a game at Target Field yet, today is the perfect opportunity for you! The Twins will host the Detroit Tigers tonight at 7:10pm and Ticket King still has a huuuuuge selection of cheap Twins vs. Tigers tickets for you to choose from! Our upper level seats currently start at just $15 per ticket or lowers start at $35 each. We have some amazing deals right now with the majority of our seats BELOW face value! Also, remember that your tickets can easily be picked up before the game from our Minneapolis office located at 212 Chicago Avenue South. Don't wait too long, these tickets are flying out the door! GO TWINS!!!!Source URL: http://afrenchkitchengardenweekend.blogspot.com/2010/08/Visit a french kitchen garden weekend for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

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This fall, the fashion trends are SO adorable (and accessible), so I figured I'd make a little list of them this week. First up, army jackets! Would you wear this tomboy look? Perfect for the flea market and cider mill.

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Rodney Dangerfield was a little like Will Ferrell, wasn't he? You hired him and you knew pretty much straight away what you were getting. The aw-shucks delivery. The halting gait. The incessant one liners. Goodness, the incessant one liners. The story for "Back To School" is credited to three people (including Dangerfield) and the screenplay is credited to four writers but most every line spoken by anyone feels like a set-up for a Dangerfield one-liner. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Consider the initial scene with Dangerfield, playing Thornton Melon, a self-made millionaire of big and tall clothing, filming a commercial for his business, a commercial which consists entirely of one-liners. It establishes the character and lets him be who he is. Unfortunately, despite his success in business Thornton's second wife (80's vixen Adrienne Barbeau) is up to no good and, thus, in the face of divorce he takes his limousine and lights out for Grand Lakes College where his son Jason (Keith Gordon) is in a fraternity and on the diving team. Well....not quite. It seems Jason was lying about that. He is not in a frat and he is the towel boy for the diving team. He pines for lovely Valerie (Terry Farrell) but she is with his ne'er-do-well diving rival Chas (William Zabka, the go-to 80's movie bully). He only has one friend, Derek Lutz, a Billy Idol-channeling Robert Downey Jr.

Jason is thinking about dropping out but Thornton, despite not having received a university diploma himself, councils that if someone doesn't attend and finish college they're nothin'. (This nugget of wisdom apparently means people like, say, Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga, Lucinda Williams, Clint Eastwood, and Hollywood's current best screenwriter Tony Gilroy are nothin' but, you know, never mind.) Jason points out his dad never finished college at which point Thornton decides to enroll and bam! We've got our title!

Thornton will bribe Ned Beatty's Dean Martin (ha! ha!) to get in and butt heads with the smarmy professor Philip Barbay (Paxton Whithead, whose own name is better than his character's) who is "going with" English Professor Diane Turner (Sally Kellerman) who in no time will blossom into Thornton's love interest and in the penultimate scene he is called upon to perform an "impossible" dive called The Triple Lindy that all us pre-teens in the 80's acted out using couch cushions afterwards. He will teach his son to be a man and his son will teach him to grow up and take responsibility for himself. In fact, the relationship here between Thornton and Jason, amidst some suspect material, is actually quite graceful. The son is not trying to act out against his father and the father is not trying to browbeat his son. They clearly just want the best for one another.

Keith Gordon never did much acting after "Back To School", turning instead to directing which he has only done sporadically, though with honorable intentions - "A Midnight Clear" (1992), "The Singing Detective" (2003, re-teaming him years later with Downey Jr.) and "Waking The Dead" (2000), an underseen Billy Crudup/Jennifer Connelly ghost story that is flawed but genuine. I liked Gordon in this. He has a certain loopy charm and was not lifted from the same cookie cutter as so many other 80's actors. In fact, as the love interest Farrell is taller than Gordon but rather than resort to having Gordon stand on a box - a la Tom Cruise & Kelly McGillis in "Top Gun" - they just let the height discrepancy be. Refreshing.

The best moment in the film belongs to Sam Kinison as an unhinged history professor and the film's most curious moment is a "Twist and Shout" sing-along which I was ready to decry as a "Ferris Bueller" rip-off until I realized that, according to IMDB, "Back To School" was officially released a whole 2 days after "Ferris Bueller". Were "Twist and Shout" sing-alongs all the rage back in the 80's and I have forgotten?

Of course the critical question is what modern day viewers might glean from 1986's #6 film at the box office? Is there any unique insight into this long ago decade? Consider, perhaps, the sequence in which Thornton wants the colossal university hall hosting class sign-ups cleared so he can get the courses he wants when he wants and so his driver (Burt Young, not looking all that different from his recent "Rocky Balboa" appearance) retreats to the limo and holds aloft a sign with the name of the most famous celebrity possible to draw every student away from the sign-up and easily succeeds. The celebrity's name? Bruce Springsteen. That's right, kids, there once was a time when The Boss could send every 18-22 year old in a 50 mile radius into a frenzy. No, really, I'm not lying. He could. I said, he could, damn it! Why don't you believe me?! God, I'm old.Source URL: http://afrenchkitchengardenweekend.blogspot.com/2010/08/Visit a french kitchen garden weekend for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

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terhand doel

Monday, August 30, 2010

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DEADLY LITTLE SECRETS is headed for a store near you SEPTEMBER 7th!!And now that I have your attention by putting in something from TWILIGHT (A September calendar page, so it DOES apply!), I'll tell you about DEADLY LITTLE SECRETS.....

I love this book. It was fun to write and even more fun to surprise people (my editor included!) with the twists and turns. The book is about cold cases and art fraud, friendship and danger. How's that for vague? Ha!

It was interesting to research the book, discover how people smuggle paintings and how often, something happens and fabulous art ends up in a yard sale bin, or a library, or hanging on the wall of a little old lady in Poughkeepsie, who has no idea the painting is "real."

(That's one of my favorite paintings by John Singer Sargent over there on the left, by the way. No, quit looking at Robert Pattinson, the painting is over THERE....nevermind.)

Based on some very cool stories about just that sort of thing - lost art - and some other bits here and there, I created a cold case of art fraud for Ana Burton, brilliant, in-the-doghouse CIA agent who screwed up enough to get stuck on cold case duty. Rumor has it her data was wrong, and some of her team got killed. she's not only stuck, she thinks she DID screw up, and if she did, she'll never be the same.

Then there's her opposite number, Gates Bromley. I researched security for high-profile individuals. Who has a body guard and why would you want one? What do they do? How does it work?

So Gates is in charge of security for billionaire art collector, Dav Gianikopolis. After reading about several high-net-worth security mavins, I created Gates. He's at points Dav's partner in business as well, so he's not your average beefy thug, although he's pretty darn delicious, I must say!

At first, he and Ana clash, but within hours of meeting with her about the nine-years-cold-case of art fraud, Gates is shot at, and so is Ana.

Someone wants that cold case to stay buried in the stacks, and they'll stoop to murder to insure it.

(cue suspensful music....)

And that's the story of DEADLY LITTLE SECRETS!

Bwah-ha-ha-ha! Sort of. There's a lot more, and a lot of very, very twisty bits. The one overwhelming statement everyone's made is...."WHOA, I didn't see THAT coming!"

Heh-heh-heh. That's just the way I like it.

Just before the book comes out, the publishing house sends it out for reviews. (This will make you crazy if you let it and it nearly gave me a case of the hives on this one.)

With great thankfulness, I received my third 4.5 star review and a TOP PICK from Romantic Times magazine.

To say that it made my day is a gross understatement. I squealed, I bounced up and down in my office chair. I emailed EVERYONE, then I called everyone: my hubby, the Banditas, my family, people I barely know. Seriously, I was stoked.

So, between the LAUNCH and a good review, THAT calls for a CELEBRATION! SVEN!!! Bring a round of drinks. Demetrius! Paolo! Hockey Hunks! Bring on the party hats and streamers! Implore the Goddess Sangria to bless our gathering 'cause We are havin' a LAUNCH PARTY!!!!!

Let's get out the paint, the wall sized canvas and Paint the TOWN!!!! Grab a drink and a brush and a color and let's GO!!!

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"If you want the good old days just put on a jean jacket and crank Cyndi Lauper." - Author Unknown

That's right, loyal readers, for the next three days terhand doel is steeping itself in nostalgia, time traveling to the era of my youth. We're going aaaaaaaaaaaaall the way back to the decade when Tommy worked on the docks (before the union went on strike, of course), Will Smith was The Fresh Prince, Jerry Brown and George Deukmejian governed California because Schwarzenegger was too busy blowing things up, basketball players still wore shorts like this and we all thought "ALF" was hilarious (until we watched it 15 years later and said, "Oh, sweet Jesus, this is terrible").

(You're damn right, they are.)

Three days. Three stars. Three "cornerstone" films of 80's cinema. It'll be a little bit wistful, a little bit terrifying. So settle in and grab yourself a Capri Sun six pack. This trip down memory lane could get intense and so I'm warning you now. Okay? Are we cowabunga on this? And for anyone who might not grasp the critical differences between Whitesnake and White Lion and think these movies have no place in the modern world, well, you may be right. But know this....you weren't there.Source URL: http://afrenchkitchengardenweekend.blogspot.com/2010/08/Visit a french kitchen garden weekend for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

Everyone knows that Paris Hilton is a cocaine addict, right? Well, now everyone knows. Paris Hilton was arrested last night for possession of cocaine. It was in Las Vegas, traveling in a car from a friend when the car was by the police in Las Vegas driven stopped. The police had warned that the car was a trail of smoke, "the name that people had the car speakers, I think it means.

Found in possession of cocaine agents in Paris. Here's more from the AP (via HuffPo ): Paris Hilton Police arrested and charged with possession of cocaine on Friday night, after leaving the car was in Las Vegas in Las Vegas, authorities said. socialite reserved in was Detention Center Clark County early Saturday load of cocaine, a spokesman for the police in Las Vegas, said Marcus Martin. He was released before dawn on their own recognition. 29 - years, Hilton has been in a car driven by a friend when was arrested at 23:30 MDT Friday after suspected marijuana officers found smoke coming from him, told the Associated Press.

I do not know how long it had taken place, nor any details about a possible date for the hearing. She said that the man was driving the vehicle on charges of driving has been arrested under the influence of drugs. He had no further details, including your name. not returned calls for comment Manager Hilton Saturday morning AP. His publicist, Dawn Miller, did not return an e-mail. The arrest came during a week when he was an attempted robbery at the home of the Hilton Los Angeles. The authorities say 31 years, Nathan Lee Parada a criminal charge Tuesday burlgary incident faces.

The authorities said that only one person with two large knives in the window of the Hilton. It published a photo of arrests on Twitter and was described as "terrible". Hilton was arrested this summer after the World Cup game between Brazil and the Netherlands in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, on charges of possession of marijuana. The case was deleted after hearing at midnight.